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The Trump administration is purchasing warehouses across the U.S. with the intention of converting them into immigration jails as the White House expands its brutal immigration crackdown.
At least seven sites being looked at by the administration could be used to imprison 7,500 people or more, with some sites coming close to a 10,000-person figure.
All told, the 23 warehouse sites being considered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would imprison as many as 80,000 people if converted into immigration jails — and more if the administration fails to implement safe living standards.
Eighteen states in total — including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Virginia — could be part of the project. The administration is likely paying hundreds of millions of dollars collectively for these buildings, and the price tag will likely reach into the billions with the added cost of converting them into prisons.
If the administration follows through with this plan, it will be the largest expansion of immigrant prisons in U.S. history.
A post from DHS on X claims that the buildings they’re purchasing “will not be warehouses — they will be well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”
But experts believe it will be difficult to ensure the warehouses meet safety standards before agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and/or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) begin imprisoning people within their walls. Indeed, at least one of the warehouses being considered for purchase is reputed to be dangerous on hot weather days.
Meanwhile, “regular detention standards” in facilities already operated by DHS are abusive and inhumane, human rights groups have pointed out. The Trump administration reopened a former state prison in Texas last year, for example, in order to imprison immigrant families, including young children. Conditions in that prison have been described as “horrible,” with water and food containing contaminants that could make people sick.
The purchase and conversion of these buildings would be a major escalation of President Donald Trump’s already deeply unpopular immigration crackdown, in which federal agents have terrorized communities across the U.S., often abducting people with pending asylum cases or who were set to receive green cards with no regard for their due process rights, and even detaining U.S. citizens.
Some cities have sought to prevent the Trump administration from purchasing warehouses within their boundaries that could be used to imprison immigrants. In Kansas City, the city council voted last month in favor of a five-year moratorium that bans any detention facility from being established if it is not owned by the city itself.
That ban could be challenged — the state legislature, for example, which is controlled by Republicans, could pass a bill nullifying local ordinances seeking to block the administration from buying these warehouses. The White House could also file a lawsuit claiming federal “supremacy clause” arguments.
But city leaders say they will not give up without a fight.
“I will use every tool at my disposal to fight this federally funded terrorist organization that is ICE,” Kansas City Councilman Jonathan Duncan said after the ordinance was passed. “While today’s moratorium vote was a good first step to stopping this mass incarceration concentration camp from being built in our City, this fight is far from over. We will need to put public pressure on any business that thinks they can sell out our community for personal profit. That comes next.”
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